Event Review: Boca School for Autism Staff Trainings at Boca School for Autism in Boca Raton, FL on

On July 14th, I once again travelled to Florida to conduct another training, this time for a school that I have been helping to launch for some time since I joined the board at Unicorn Children’s Foundation.

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Located on the campus of Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton, FL, the Boca School for Autism is a school geared towards educating students with autism and developmental disabilities not only teaching them about academics but also important life skills such as learning how to make a bed, cook meals, doing the dishes, doing laundry, etc. I gotta say that no other family will find no other school that can teach their children about more than just academics.

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However, as we all know, school safety drills as well as school assemblies are greatly bothersome to students with sensory processing issues and it’s my job to ensure that teachers and administrators are trained to help students get through those situations. While this was just another presentation on school safety drills, this was also my first time presenting on school assemblies which is often overlooked by teachers and administrators.

My presentation on school assemblies covered several important areas such as noise levels and anxieties of being huddled together in close quarters. When I was a student, I kept my feelings to myself about not wanting to be at school assemblies because they were a disruption to my routine and such. Now, in the case of the Boca School for Autism, the student population is roughly the size of one classroom and the welcome assemblies on the first day of school will only have two cohorts of students of 6 students the first two days as an example.

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In the presentation, I also talked about what tips teachers and administrators can use to help students cope with assemblies such as breathing techniques like 478s as well as the option of the student being able to escape if needed to another classroom if they get too overwhelmed. But I also hammered the option of a virtual school assembly because if there is one thing that the COVID pandemic demonstrated was that virtual school assemblies are a much easier option for sensory friendly students, especially if they need to stim and just be themselves.

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Of course, the second part of the training was the school safety drills presentation. Now, last time I presented this on Hutchinson Island, I was discouraged to hear that not everyone practiced school bus evacuation drills. This time, I largely focused on three various drills: fire, lockdown and tornado.

Because this was a two-part training, I had the opportunity to focus more attention particularly on fire drills such as the sounds of the alarm and the flashing lights of the alarm which are also sensory triggers to students. To demonstrate this, I used Godzilla and King Kong fighting each other from “King Kong vs. Godzilla” (1962) as a way of saying that the sounds of the alarm and the flashing of the lights on the alarm are fighting for control of the sensory friendly student’s mind. Godzilla represented the sounds of the alarm while King Kong represents the flashing lights and how the student is often caught in the middle.

The next area during the school safety drills training I taught my audience was to keep an eye on students who might try to elope because they are so overwhelmed by the situation and for teachers and administrators to keep their cool because students will often try to mimic the behavior of another person. As you know, in many instances, neurodiverse individuals will elope or wander off with often deadly results or consequences. The last thing any teacher or administrator wants is for a student to disappear on their watch.

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However, one of the tools I gave to my small audience of 5 was reaching out to various community members such as the Boca Raton Fire and Police Departments as well as the local weather stations in West Palm Beach to help the students prepare for these various drills. One way to get students to understand why we do these drills is for community members to show students as well as teachers and administrators that these drills sometimes bother them as well and thus, the playing field is made even.

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Now, if there is one thing that I find is that schools everywhere can benefit from these kinds of presentations that I offer. There needs to be a level of understanding that is between sensory friendly student and teacher/administrator when it comes to school assemblies and school safety drills. I also want to make aware that what I offer does not mean to get out of students to participate in assemblies and school safety drills altogether.

No matter how big or how small, schools like Boca School for Autism will find that hearing from firsthand experience from someone like me will help a student who is struggling with assemblies and school safety drills because they have the tools to help that sensory friendly student.

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Catch you all later!!

#Diversity #Disability #SchoolSafetyDrills #SchoolAssemblies #Neurodiversity #SchoolSafety #JobCoach #Equality #SpecialEducation #Autism #SchoolAssembly #Education #Employment #Inclusion